The share of adults in Austria who have difficulty reading and understanding even simple texts and with easy mathematical tasks has increased dramatically in ten years.
Between 2012 and 2023, the group with reading difficulties among 16 to 65 year olds almost doubled to 29 percent, according to a study published on Tuesday by the OECD’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Compared to the other 30 countries participating this time in the “Adult PISA”, Austria scored significantly lower than the OECD average in reading (254 versus 260 points). At most, 29 percent of respondents could solve the simplest reading tasks at skill level 1 or lower (OECD average: 26).
Functionally illiterate people fail based on primary school examples
People who can only solve tasks at competency level 1 are actually functionally illiterate, OECD education director Andreas Schleicher explained at an online press conference. They even fail at tasks that a child should have mastered by the end of primary school.
Schleicher sees the need for action in the Austrian education system with a view to developing reading skills. “There is actually a decline in the performance of people with a low level of education.” The performance level of those who do not have a secondary level 2 diploma (AHS, BMHS, vocational school, polytechnic) has “decreased significantly”.
Although mass immigration had some negative effects on the literacy of the population in Austria, these were small. “We’ll get four or five points,” Schleicher said. The results also show that there are hardly any reading differences between second-generation migrants and tested migrants without a migration background (265 versus 267 points).
In mathematics and ‘adaptive problem solving’ above the OECD average
Mathematics results remained relatively stable compared to 2012, but here too Schleicher sees “a growing discrepancy between what people can do and what they should be able to do.” Nevertheless, the score of 267 points was well above the OECD average of 263. The results in the field of so-called adaptive problem solving were also above the average of the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. But here too, more than one in four (27 percent) achieves the best competency level 1 and can therefore only solve simple problems with a few variables that do not change along the way to the solution (OECD average: 29).
Compared to 2012, according to Schleicher, the correlation between performance and the social background of the parents of the test participants has “again developed unfavorably” – even if factors such as the older population are taken into account (older people achieve worse results on average, pay attention) and migration over the past ten years.
Source: Krone
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